Brush to canvas: News from the art community

Jason Hackenwerth can (and does) create marvelous sculptures out of biodegradable latex balloons, and with Saturday’s Sparrow’s Dream event – 8 p.m. in the Palladium Theater’s Hough Hall – he’s rising to lofty new heights of inflatable abstraction.

As part of the Palladium’s Creative Fellowships program, Hackenwerth has come up with a unique performance art piece: Eight dancers (Helen Hansen French, Alexander Jones, Alexander Hernandez, Madison Pineda Bender, Mackenzie McLean, Sean Porter, Mac Ryan and Maria Fernanda Buysse Carre) will don 13 wearable, undulating sculptures (see photo at top of this article) and perform to a series of (recorded) well-known operatic arias.

Tickets are available here.

Walk this way

More than 30 over 30 galleries and studios will be open Saturday from 5 to 9 p.m. – it’s the St. Petersburg Arts Alliance’s Second Saturday ArtWalk. Find the map, and February artist listings, here.

Saturday at St. Pete ArtWorks Gallery, a 5 to 9 p.m. reception for White Birds & Black Ink, a show by watercolor artist Jillian Holladay. Music by Evan French.

Marianne Chapel’s Urban Boundaries: Layers of Place and Space opens with a 4 to 6 p.m. reception Saturday at Soft Water Gallery. The Sarasota artist paints with encaustic (hot) wax on wood panels.

Opening with a 5-9 p.m. reception Saturday at the Morean Center for Clay: Simpler Times: Remembering Windy Meadows Pottery, a collection of Jan Richardson’s mini-architectural sculptures.

Ya La’Ford will survey the west this month at the James Museum of Western & Wildlife Art.

Looking westward

Coming to the James Museum of Western & Wildlife Art Feb. 15 is a solo show by the innovative bay artist Ya La’Ford. Survey the West: A Cross-Continental Reflection is the first exhibit at the seven-year-old museum to focus on abstract art.

Utilizing her signature geometric and linear labyrinths, Survey the West represents La’Ford’s reactions to a recent three-month tour of the American West, where the natural beauty inspired her to create impressionistic sculptures and paintings after the area’s color, shape, texture and emotion.

“Through this exhibition,” the artist said in a prepared statement, “we aim to challenge perceptions and inspire a collective reimagining of our shared stories, bridging the past with the possibilities of tomorrow.”

La’Ford plans to create a community mural – with assist from the community – during the run of the exhibit. Survey the West will remain through May 18.

In Gulfport

Larry Maynard, “Summer Glow.” Image provided.

Happy anniversary to the Gulfport Fine Arts Festival, celebrating its 10^th year Saturday and Sunday at Clymer Park, 5501 27th Avenue S. From 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. each day, more than 50 artists and craft artisans will show and sell their works, in all media, at the juried show. Find additional details at this link.

Nancy Poucher Coastal Art and Gulfport FL Plein Air Painters have organized For the Love of Gulfport, an exhibit in the lobby of the Catherine Hickman Theater. It opens Friday with a reception from 6 to 8 p.m.

The use of use of dark, neutral hues (such as gray, brown or blue) is indicative of a tonalist, an artist who paints simply moody, sometimes misty and mysterious landscapes. Works by tonalist Larry Maynard, a St. Petersburg artist, make up the newest exhibition at Gulfport’s Brenda McMahon Gallery. The opening reception (Friday from 6 to 9 p.m.) will feature music from Henry Ashwood.

“Steve & Nicole, Atlanta, Georgia,” from “Barbara Peacock: American Bedroom.”

In Tampa

Opening Friday at the Tampa Museum of Art, Under the Spell of the Palm Tree: The Rice Collection of Cuban Art  is an exhibition of works by 50 Cuban artists. It includes modern and contemporary Cuban art featuring over 80 paintings, drawings, photographs, prints, mixed media, art books and sculptures. It will remain at the museum through July 6.

Coming Jan. 18 to the Florida Museum of Photographic Art: Barbara Peacock: American Bedroom, am exhibition of photographs by a Massachusetts/Maine photographer “who has spent her career capturing the beauty in ordinary moments.” The photographs are from her 2023 book American Bedroom, for which Peacock photographed approximately 400 people in all 50 states.

On her website, Peacock discusses the seven-year project: “I can’t begin to tell you about the people I’ve met, the stories they’ve shared, the coffees that we shared, some laughs and even a few tears.”

Please add us to your mailing list – send all press releases and event info to bill@stpetecatalyst.com.

You can also submit your events to the Catalyst calendar, by clicking here.